1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording/reproducing device, and more particularly to a recording/reproducing device which can securely load a tape cassette to a given cassette loading position.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a recording/reproducing device using a tape cassette having a cassette case, tape reels rotatably provided in the cassette case, and a tape as a recording medium wound around the tape reels, the tape cassette is positioned in the recording/reproducing device by engaging positioning pins provided in the recording/reproducing device with positioning pins formed in the tape cassette.
Conventionally, until the positioning holes start engaging with the positioning pins, the tape cassette is positioned only by a cassette holder for holding the tape cassette and moving it to a given cassette loading position. The related art of the present invention is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,316,236 and European Patent Laid-open No. 0,572,925 (corresponding to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 67,811, filed May 27, 1993, now issues as U.S. Pat. No. 5,390,870 to the present applicant.
However, in the recording/reproducing device as mentioned above, until the positioning holes of the tape cassette start engaging with the positioning pins, a position error of the tape cassette decided in the cassette holder is large. In such a specification that the position error of the tape cassette permitted until it is loaded to the given cassette loading position is small, it is difficult to design a recording/reproducing device meeting this specification.
In particular, while there is a tendency to reduce the size of the tape cassette at present, the size of a device such as LED itself is not reduced. Accordingly, the clearance between each positioning hole and its corresponding positioning pin must be increasingly reduced, and the difficulty of designing of the recording/reproducing device becomes remarkable.
Further, known is another type of recording/reproducing device allowing selective loading of two different-sized tape cassettes wherein the space between a supply reel and a take-up reel for winding a tape is different. In this recording/reproducing device, two reel tables adapted to individually engage with the supply reel and the take-up reel are moved to positions corresponding to the two reels of each of the different-sized tape cassettes. Accordingly, the positioning of each tape cassette in the cassette holder is more difficult than that in a recording/reproducing device using a single-sized tape cassette.